Tag: Magnum

Cinema Through the Eye of Magnum, a new documentary about the legendary photo agency, will be screened for the first time in the UK tonight at 10pm on BBC4. This image, captured by Ernst Haas, shows fellow Magnum photographer Elliott Erwitt among the cast and crew of The Misfits.

“The Misfits was a pivotal moment in photographers’ relationship with cinema. Lee Jones, Magnum’s head of special projects in New York, decided that the film’s dream cast deserved special attention. Nine different photographers took turns over 3 months of the shoot to capture the ‘total chaos’ on what would be Marilyn Monroe’s last film.

Eve Arnold, Magnum’s first woman member, was Monroe’s trusted collaborator. Having previously worked with Marlene Dietrich and Joan Crawford, she started photographing Monroe when they were both relatively unknown. She spent two months on the set of the John Huston movie.

Photographer Bruce Davidson remarked, ‘Marilyn is really in torment – this was the movie where it all collapsed. And the hidden homosexuality, total neurosis, drugs, the whole works (on set). This film is a turning point, and the photographs document the disintegration of a system.’

Clark Gable had a heart attack the day after filming wrapped on The Misfits and died a few days later.”

Philippe Halsman’s joyous 1959 portrait of Marilyn – part of his ‘Jump’ series – is one of seventy images chosen to represent Magnum Photos on its 70th anniversary in an exhibition in the pedestrian tunnel at King’s Cross in London for a month from May 15, reports The Guardian.

Today’s edition of U.K. Sunday newspaper, The Observer, includes a feature on the 70th anniversary of Magnum, focusing on the pioneering agency’s female photographers. Marilyn’s work with Eve Arnold is mentioned, and Inge Morath’s portrait of a warm, mature but still wistful Marilyn during the Misfits shoot is among Magnum’s many iconic images of Monroe. When Inge visited the Millers’ hotel suite in Reno on that fateful day in 1960, who could have predicted that within two short years Marilyn would die, and Morath would be Arthur’s wife?

Inge Morath: On Style is a new book focusing on the late photographer’s work in fashion and film. Her images of Marilyn on the set of The Misfits are elegant and tender, and the knowledge that Morath would become Arthur Miller’s third wife adds a note of poignancy. Author Justine Picardie writes about Inge’s work with director John Huston, and her later encounter with Arthur which led to a long and happy marriage, in a blog post for the Magnum website.

“This was also the period when Morath first started working with the director John Huston; one of her earliest assignments was to photograph the stills for his film Moulin Rouge in London in 1952, which was to be the start of a lifelong friendship … Huston would later describe Morath as ‘a high priestess of photography,’ a woman with ‘the rare ability to penetrate beyond surfaces and reveal what makes her subject tick.’

Morath’s friendship with Huston was to play an important part in her personal life, as well as her career. In 1959, she travelled to Mexico to photograph the making of his film The Unforgiven … The following year, Morath visited the set of another of Huston’s films, The Misfits, accompanied by her Magnum colleague, Henri Cartier-Bresson.

When Morath was subsequently asked by the New York Times about the experience of photo- graphing Monroe, she described the actress as ‘kind of shimmery. But there was also this sadness underneath. A poetry of unhappiness. That was what was so mesmerizing, the twofold thing you got, the unhappiness always underneath the joy and the glamour…that was the poetry.’ In the same interview, Morath added one more intriguing fragment to the story. ‘I once dreamt we both danced together, Marilyn and I. It was beautiful.'”

Director John Huston with Marilyn during filming of ‘The Misfits’, 1960

Magnum alumni Bruce Davidson, who photographed Marilyn behind the scenes during filming of Let’s Make Love and The Misfits in 1960, is the subject of a new book by Vicki Goldberg in the Magnum Legacy series, reports CNN. (It follows the first Magnum Legacy book about Eve Arnold, another photographer of Marilyn’s, which was published last year.)

“What makes Davidson’s photographs so compelling is that they stem from patience and an ability to empathize with his subjects.

‘I stay a long time,’ he said. ‘My eyes open to their lives. In my silence, they feel secure. My philosophy is to stay until it becomes a subject. I am an outsider on the inside.'”

Marilyn never went to Cannes, but as the 2016 film festival gets underway, she’ll be there in spirit, WMagazine reports. Magnum photographer Bruce Davidson’s shot of Marilyn with co-star Clark Gable and director John Huston during filming of The Misfits in 1960 is featured in ‘The Art of Behind the Scenes’, an exhibition of images captured on the sets of movies old and new, on display at the Hotel du Cap in Antibes.

Following the opening of an exhibition in Amsterdam featuring Milton Greene’s and Douglas Kirkland’s photos of Marilyn, there is more good news for our Dutch readers. ‘Magnum on Set‘, a retrospective of the legendary agency’s cinematic photojournalism (including coverage of The Seven Year Itch and The Misfits) is now on display at the Boscotondohal in Gemeentemuseum Helmond until March 27.